Democratic Party of Japan leadership race Jan 18 2015

[EPG]

Is he a bad candidate in the Atlas Forum sense, or in the sense that actual Japanese people wouldn't like his leadership?

[EPG]

Okada just won in the run-off, by playing up lefty policies

@EPG, the DJP's main problem is it is too ideologically inconsistent beyond being anti-LDP. They really need to let the JIP go.

Ideological inconsistency isn't a problem for political parties in Japan! It is more like a prerequisite. In so far as the DPJ has a problem, it's that nobody liked the one time they were in government.

[EPG]

well, the problem is that once they get into power they're completely moribund and start collapsing into factions. At least the LDP are united in the sheer determination to protect established interests. (I think the LDP are closest you will come to an undiluted small-"c" conservative party)

Weirdly enough - seeing as how terrible the DJP did last time - they aren't in a terrible place. They've jettisoned jokers and ill-placed wings. Ozawa's revolt failed. The JIP and PFG aren't going to destroy them - they haven't lost their status as the dominant opposition party. All they need now is some, err, policies.

But, this characterisation of the LDP is very 1990s. It pre-dates the rise of the moderate hawks (Koizumi/Abe) which have plenty of objections to the historic course of the LDP.

The Japan Socialists were both a dominant opposition and had plenty of policies - and opposition they remained. Their problem was being too extreme, but the DPJ's current problem is that too few voters trust them.

[EPG]

They have never been very consistent but they have won one election. The proximate cause of their current absence of trust is that they just governed badly. Maybe the consumption tax and the triple disaster were to some extent due to LDP decisions, but the DPJ did really badly in responding to them, and then there were problems that were purely their own fault, like alienating the United States.